Are you addicted to reading?

Gwen Dawson wrote this great article on her blog today about how to tell if you are addicted to reading or not. She also had a link to a fun quiz you can take to find out if you are addicted.
My results?
"You are totally crazy about reading novels. It is more than a passion for you. Reading novels is an obsession for you."
Uh-oh...what I want to know is, is it unhealthy?

Join the President Obama Book Club!

Check out this presidential reading list from The Daily Beast. Its packed full of what President Obama has been reading so far this year, many of them presidential biographies, some literary fiction and a couple others on very timely topics (read: environmental technology and climate change).

The lost art of reading

Please don't tell me people aren't reading -- I just don't believe it. But I will grant you that people aren't reading well. Here's the article from the Los Angeles Times...

2008 Books read (as of August)

It might be better to start keeping my lists of books read online. I've traditionally kept my list in a notebook, which works perfectly fine, but thought it might be interesting to share what I've read with others.
The list is chronological, starting with most recent first:

1. Isaac's Storm: a man, a time, and the deadliest hurricane in history, Erik Larson
2. When You are Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris
3. Survival of the Sickest: the surprising connections between disease and longevity, Dr. Sharon Moalem with Jonathan Prince
4. The Mistress's Daughter: a memoir, A.M. Homes
5. The Size of the World, Joan Sibber
6. The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood
7. In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden, Kathleen Cambor
8. In a Country of Mothers, A.M. Homes
9. Jack, A.M. Homes
10. Harley, like a person, Cat Bauer (YA novel)
11. Homeless Bird, Gloria Whelan (YA novel)
12. Godless, Pete Hautman (YA novel)
13. One Good Turn, Kate Atkinson
14. Jessica Farm, vol. I, Josh Simmons (graphic novel)
15. Y: The Last Man, vol. II: Cycles, Brian Vaughan (graphic novel)
16. Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Diana Gabaldon
17. Daddy's Girl, Debbie Drechsler (graphic novel)
18. The Amber Spyglass, Phillip Pullman
19. Fables: Legends in Exile (vol. I), Bill Willingham
20. Y: The Last Man, vol. I: Unmanned, Brian Vaughan
21. The Subtle Knife, Phillip Pullman
22. Plum Wine, Angela Davis-Gardner
23. The Golden Compass, Phillip Pullman
24. This Book Will Save Your Life, A.M. Homes

Since I've joined the 50 Book Challenge on LibraryThing, I'm falling a little behind, since I should be at around 30-35 books read if I want to make the 50 books by December 31st. Reading 5-10 graphic novels or YA novels should meet that goal!

Book stats

In my zealous quest to catalog all my books (please see post from yesterday) I have tallied up my reading stats from the past several years and give you some selected figures to dwell on (drumroll please):

33 books in 2007 -- I gave birth to my first child and didn't seem to have a lick of time to myself. 'Nuff said.

65 books in 2006 -- This is probably an inflated figure because so many of the titles were graphic novels. But they still count!

22 books in 2004 -- Lowest amount read during the thirteen years I have tallied the books I read. Surprising on the face of it, since I was newly divorced and all, but it is also the year I met Jeff, so there you go...

108 books read in 1998 -- Whew! I looked through my list and had to count again - 108 books in one year?? Wow, impressive. I was also unhappy in my marriage, on a major readers' advisory committee at work where we were selecting all the best books of the year, and lonely in a city where my then-husband and I knew practically no one.

I yearn for the days when I could read 100 books in a year...but wouldn't give up my present life on a bet!

The Kid Stackz

This piece by Jessica Kane is interesting: she proposes that public libraries create areas in their buildings for childcare. Parents drop off their kids for a couple of hours while they read. The library could charge for the service and help fund their collections with the money they receive from the childcare center. What a (ahem) novel idea!

I would certainly sign up for it -- I never feel like I have enough time to read now that Griffin is here. If I could drop him off at a childcare facility just for the express purpose of reading (as opposed to dropping him off at workout gym-sponsored childcare area), I would certainly feel freed up to do my daily quota of reading...

British public not "clever or lofty" readers...

According to an article in today's British paper, The Guardian, latest figures show that the popular reading tastes of Britain's library-going public lends itself to the likes of Danielle Steel, Catherine Cookson and Josephine Cox: a certifiable triumvirate of romance and suspense. Is this really a surprise? Read the Guardian article here...